Last week I did the cover for Alma Alexander's new short story collection Weight of Worlds (the Kindle version is $2.99 on Amazon right now). This was months in the making and I'm glad it's come together. The titular story, "Weight of Worlds", is about a young man, balanced precariously on the edge of fortune and folly who learns of a strange legacy left to him by his dying grandfather. Alma had initially asked for a cover that showed a group of seven marbles suspended in space, which we did (it's behind the cut), but after reading the story I became convinced that the thing to show was the main character at a critical time, so I did a second cover with model Joshua Taylor which I'm bang up happy with. The overlaying texture, if you're curious, is a detail from a scan of the Shroud of Turin which I used only because I think it's cool to say it's a detail from a scan of the Shroud of Turin.

There are three other versions, behind the scenes stuff and some technical "how to" photo info

This was an earlier version which I liked the framing of, but ultimately I didn't think it focused enough on the little spinning worlds. We shot this under the El in Philadelphia -- I wanted a mysteriously semi-urban background and I alternate between train trestles and some buildings and a field behind a chain link fence. Ultimately, the building and it's own particular fence won.

I lit it with a small Easybox softbox and an sb800 flash triggered by a set of pocket wizards. I used a 28-200 Nikon Zoom usually at somewhere between 35mm and 50mm.

This was the first cover. I still like it a lot.

Roswell makes friends with the model because Roswell always makes friends with the model.